Chapter 4 - A missing file

ROMAN

I fucking hate welcome week.

Every year, Blackthorne opens its gates and several thousand students arrive thinking they've just earned themselves a place at one of the most prestigious universities in the country. Technically, they have. What nobody tells them is that getting accepted is the easiest part. Staying here is harder. Knowing who to avoid is even worse. Tonight, most of them are crammed inside a house on Mercer Row, drinking alcohol they didn't pay for and trying to f*ck people whose names they'll pretend not to remember by Monday. Cole loves this shit. Noah tolerates it because half the football team is here. Rhys looks like he'd rather start setting people on fire. I'm only here because the four of us needed to be seen somewhere other than beneath Blackthorne after what happened with the archive. Sometimes being watched works in our favour. Tonight is one of those times.

"Try looking less pissing miserable." Cole appears beside me and offers me a glass.

"No."

"You don't even know what's in it."

"I watched you make it."

"Exactly. Quality control."

"You poured three different bottles into one glass."

"Creativity."

"Alcoholism more like.”

Noah laughs from my other side.

"He's got you there." He says but Cole gives him the finger, instead of being offended.

Rhys stands opposite us, staring over the crowd.

"Where is he?"

Three words. That's all it takes to kill the humour.

I glance towards the staircase before checking the entrance again. The sophomore from last night isn't here. He should be. We told him to behave normally, and according to the messages Noah pulled from his phone, he attends this party every year. If whoever paid him for the file suspects we caught him, we lose our best chance of finding out who's behind it. Five thousand dollars isn't enough to make a student break into a sealed archive without them asking any questions. Not in that specific archive. Not for that file. Someone knew exactly what they were looking for, and until we know why, nothing about last night leaves the four of us. Not even the other members of The Thirteen know the location he gave us meant something. For now, I intend to keep it that way.

Noah checks his phone.

"Nothing."

"Keep watching."

Cole takes a drink while muttering "And if he doesn't show?"

"We‘ll find him. And we cut him to pieces."

Rhys finally looks at me.

"I'll find him."

"No." He snaps but his expression doesn't change.

"I didn't ask."

"That's exactly why I'm saying no."

Cole laughs into his glass.

"Please let Hunter find him. I haven't been entertained all week."

"Fuck off," Rhys mutters.

The conversation ends when two girls approach Noah, both wearing Blackthorne football shirts with his number painted across the front. Predictable. Noah grins like he hasn't spent the last twenty minutes discussing a stolen file connected to four criminal families and disappears with them towards the kitchen. Cole follows because Cole would attend his own execution if there were women and free alcohol waiting beside the gallows. Rhys stays for another minute before receiving a message, looking at it and walking away without explanation. I don't ask. If I need him, he'll answer. Until then, I finally get thirty fucking seconds without one of them talking in my ear.

I move away from the main room and towards the back of the house, ignoring everyone who tries to stop me. Most move before I reach them. A few don't. They're usually freshmen. They'll learn. The hallway leading towards the rear terrace is quieter, although the bass still makes the framed photographs on the walls vibrate. I pull out my phone and check the security feed from the location we visited last night. Nothing. Whoever collected that file did it before we arrived. No face. No vehicle registration. Nothing useful beyond confirmation that somebody has started digging into business that should've stayed buried. Someone brave enough to look into it in the first place. I hate unknown variables. People are easy when you know what they want.

Money. Power. Revenge. Fear. Leverage.Everyone wants something. Figure out what it is and you figure out where to apply the most pressure. Whoever we're dealing with hasn't given me enough to work with yet. That makes them either careful or stupidly confident. I hate both. I f*ck*ng hate lose ends.

I lock my phone and reach for the terrace door.

It opens before I touch it.

A girl walks straight into me. Not brushes against me. Not nearly hitting me.

She walks straight fucking into me.

Her hands land against my chest, and the drink she's holding tips dangerously between us before she manages to save it. For half a second, neither of us moves. Then she steps backwards and looks down at the front of my black shirt like she's checking whether she's spilled anything on me.

"Shit.”

I look at her. She looks at the drink. Then me.

"You're dry."

"Congratulations." I say humourlessly. But she doesn't look to be happy to bump into me either but what do I care?

Her eyebrows pull together.

"Excuse me?"

"You successfully carried a drink through a doorway, without acting like a child and spilling it everywhere."

She stares at me for two seconds.

"Wow."

"What?" I ask. We've hit sort of a crowd and this is one thing I don't need. The bullshit women go looking to fit in when they don't have shat it takes.

"Nothing. I just didn't realise being a prick was the entry requirement for standing in this hallway."

Interesting.

Most people at Blackthorne recognise me before I ever speak to them. Some straighten. Some move. Some suddenly become very interested in whatever is happening on the opposite side of the room. But this girl looks at me like I'm an inconvenience. Dark brown hair with blue highlights fall loosely around her shoulders, slightly messy from the rain outside, and there's enough irritation in her expression to tell me she isn't pretending not to know me. She genuinely doesn't. That's unusual. More unusual is the fact she isn't immediately trying to correct the mistake.

"You walked into me."

"You were blocking the door."

"I was opening it."

"Very slowly. Like a child." she says and her friend next to her gasps but I meerly stand sith my arms crossed.

"I hadn't touched it yet."

"Exactly. Slow. Need me to spell it out for you too?”

I stare at her.

She takes a sip of her drink. Totally unfazed.

"Are we finished?" she asks as she tries to move inside.

"No."

"That's unfortunate because I am." she says and before I have a chance to correct the mistake of disrespecting me, she pushes me aside so she can step around me.

I shift once. Not enough to touch her.

Enough to block the hallway.

Her eyes drop towards the space I've just closed before returning to mine. There it is. The first flicker of caution.Small. Sensible.

It disappears almost immediately beneath annoyance. That interests me more than it should. She doesn't know who I am, but she's not stupid. She's realised I'm bigger than her, we're standing in the quietest part of the house and nobody nearby is paying enough attention to intervene if this becomes something else. No one would dare to get between us which is why the party has gone back to it's usual thump and base.

I should move. Instead, I find myself wanting to know whether she'll ask me to.

"Move."

Okay. Not ask, then.

I almost smile.

"Do you always order strangers around?"

"Only the ones deliberately standing in my way."

"Maybe I like standing here."

"Maybe you need a hobby then."

There it is again.

No hesitation.

No nervous laugh afterwards to soften it.

No apology.

I lean one shoulder against the wall.

"What's your name?"

"Why?"

"Because I asked."

"That's not a reason."

"It usually is. No one ever dares disrespect me the way you have."

"That sounds like a personal problem. And quite possibly an ego problem, there go... a you problem."

Something shifts in my chest. Not attraction. Not even a smile...yet. Irritation, maybe. Curiosity definitely. Nobody talks to me like this unless they've known me long enough to stop caring about consequences, and even then Cole is usually the only one stupid enough to push it. This girl has been at Blackthorne for, what, a day? Two? The wristband around her arm marks her as a new student, and judging by the fact she still has the campus orientation app open on her phone, she's definitely a freshman. She should've heard my name by now. Everyone does eventually. Apparently nobody thought to attach a photograph to the warning.

"Your name."

She rolls her eyes.

"Persistent, aren't you?"

"Very."

"Ivy."

The name means nothing to me.

It shouldn't.

Still, I repeat it.

"Ivy."

"Well done." she claps...well claps as well as one can with a phone and drink in her hand.

Her mouth twitches.

"Now yours."

Before I can answer, a guy comes stumbling through the doorway behind her and catches her hard enough in the shoulder to knock her forward. This time I catch her before she hits me. One hand closes around her upper arm. The other hand lands on her shoulder. Tight enough to make her look at me. Truly look at me. Her body goes rigid beneath my palm. The drunk asshole mutters something that might be an apology and tries to continue walking.

I look at him.

"Stop."

He does.

Ivy looks from me to him.

"It's fine."

"I wasn't asking you."

Her eyes narrow in my direction.

Wrong thing to say.

I know it before she opens her mouth.

"Take your hand off me jackass and move the fuck out of my way." she says and I almost laugh. She's a fucking fiesty bitch isn’t she.

The drunk guy finally looks at my face properly. Recognition hits him so hard he almost sobers on the spot.

"Blackwood."

There it is.

Ivy goes completely still.

The guy starts apologising.

"Roman, man, I didn't—"

"Go."

He goes.

Fast.

I don't watch him leave. I'm watching her.

For the first time since she walked into me, Ivy doesn't have anything to say. Her eyes move over my face like she's trying to match it with every story she's probably heard tonight. Whatever conclusion she reaches doesn't make her look frightened. It makes her look pissed off.

"Roman Blackwood." She says off handily.

I push away from the wall.

"Apparently."

She lets out a humourless laugh and walks off but my hand reaches out and grips her upper arm.

"Of course you are."

"Problem?"

"Several, according to everyone I've met today."

"And you believe everything people tell you?"

"No."

"Good."

"But I'm starting to think they undersold you. Rude. Arrogant. Annoying. Childish. Has the looks but-"

"Aw you think I'm pretty, princess?"

"I'm not your princess. Fuck you." she sneers and yanks her arm away from me.

The music gets louder when someone opens the door to the main room. A group spills into the hallway, and the moment breaks. Ivy glances past me towards the terrace, clearly remembering whatever reason brought her out here in the first place. I should let her go. I have an archive problem I need to solve, a missing sophomore that also needs to be sorted and a family dinner tomorrow that my father will probably make unbearable. The last thing I need is some freshman with a smart mouth taking up space in my head. Especially one who's apparently already been warned to stay away from me. And didn't bloody listen.

"You should listen to them."

She pauses.

"Who?"

"Everyone who's been warning you."

Ivy studies me.

"That's an interesting sales pitch."

"I'm not selling you anything."

"Good. I'm not buying any of it anyway."

She steps past me.

This time, I let her.

She makes it three steps before I speak.

"Ivy."

She turns.

"What?"

"Don't go downstairs."

Her expression changes.

"Why?"

Because the basement entrance in this house connects to an old service passage running beneath Mercer Row. Because two Hollow members are stationed down there tonight. Because if the sophomore we're looking for does appear, I don't want some curious freshman wandering into something she can't forget. Or get herself out of.

I don't tell her any of that.

"Because I said so, so fucking listen!"

She actually laughs.

"Yeah. That's definitely going to work on me."

Then she walks away.

For gods sake.

I watch her disappear into the crowd before pulling out my phone and sending Rhys a message.

Me: Keep people away from the basement.

His reply arrives immediately.

Rhys: Problem?

I look towards the room Ivy disappeared into.

Me: Apparently.

Cole appears beside me less than thirty seconds later, following my line of sight with the kind of interest that makes me immediately regret standing here.

"Who are we staring at?"

"We aren't staring at anyone."

"You're staring."

"I'm thinking of how I can solve a god damn problem or ten without getting done for murder."

"While staring at a woman."

"Fuck off."

His grin grows.

"Oh, this is interesting.This is very. Fucking. Interesting," he says slinging an arm over my shoulder and laughing.

"It isn't."

"Do you know her?"

"No."

"Do you want to?"

I look at him.

Cole raises both hands.

"Fine."

Then he looks over my shoulder and the amusement disappears.

"There."

I turn.

Across the room, near the front entrance, the sophomore from last night has finally arrived. And he isn't alone.

A man stands beside him wearing a dark coat despite the heat inside the house. Older than the students surrounding him. Mid-thirties, maybe. He says something into the juniors ear, passes him a folded piece of paper and leaves before anyone else seems to notice he was there.

Anyone except us.

Cole is already moving.

I catch his arm.

"Don't."

"We can get him."

"No. We follow him."

Cole looks towards the door.

"Rhys?"

"Already on it."

He doesn't ask how I know. But he also doesn't miss things.

Neither do I.

At least, I didn't used to.

My attention shifts across the room once more before I can stop it.

Ivy is standing beside a red-haired girl, laughing about something with her head tipped back. She looks completely out of place among the people who already understand how Blackthorne works.

Or maybe she fits too fucking well.

Either way, she's none of my concern.

I have bigger problems.

The archive.

The missing file.

Tomorrow's dinner.

A stranger digging into Hollow's business.

Ivy doesn't even make the list.

So why the hell am I still looking at her?